Mondegreen
by chappysmom
Summary: Mondegreen: a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung. Or, what happens when Sherlock tries to understand the lyrics to popular music.


Skipchat had the following prompt: _I have what might be somewhat of an unusual request: Mondegreens, with Sherlock "getting it wrong", while making an honest effort to show John that he can be up on "pop culture". Maybe he's tired of being ribbed by others for not knowing lyrics to a famous song (perhaps it was a "clue" in a case), or he's overheard singing or speaking the (incorrect) lyrics by others. At any rate, he's flubbed it up, just like the vast majority of others who have also heard that particular song. My fevered brain actually daydreamed a situation in which (somebody) brings up a song with frequently misheard lyrics: Sherlock states the incorrect lyrics, is corrected by (John, or somebody else who is also incorrect), with both being corrected (accurately) by somebody totally unexpected ( , Moriarty, Anderson, MYCROFT!, etc). Very high crack!fic potential, but +100,000 and my eternal appreciation for working it into an actual case-based story!_

I didn't quite hit every point, but hopefully she likes it. As usual, I own nothing. I just like to play here.

* * *

It wasn't fair, really, thought Sherlock as the others laughed. Even John was hiding a smile.

He was the first one to admit that his inter-personal social skills weren't the best. Frankly, he didn't care. Idle chitchat was just a waste of his time—it took him away from The Work and wasn't even interesting enough to warrant the delay. Why did people indulge in ridiculous endeavours like gossip, anyway? Most of it was completely useless and trying to weed out the few bits of useful data was tedious at best.

And yes, he was aware of the apparent contradiction between "notice and observe everything" and his declaration that "gossip is useless," thank you very much.

Observation, after all, was something one did for oneself, using one's own senses and knowledge to absorb the readily available—plentiful, even—information in one's environment.

Gossip, on the other hand, was too often filtered by what the speaker considered "juicy," or the details they decided were important. (They were usually wrong.) In both cases, the important data might be buried under a veritable avalanche of irrelevant information, and it was up to him to filter out the gold from the dross.

The main difference, though, was that observing things himself was pure, first-hand knowledge. Gossip involved _people_, with their lazy habits of observation and obsession with the trivial.

The current round of levity at his expense was a case in point.

Now, in his defence, Sherlock had firm opinions about what constituted "music." He had grown up in a household where music was cherished. Both he and Mycroft had grown up with instrument lessons and had often played together when they were young. (Those concerts had been the most, well, harmonious interactions they had had as they matured. Sherlock remembered them almost fondly.)

The point, though, was that music was _instrumental_. Vocal music was restricted to opera, church hymns, and carols at Christmas. Oh, he'd had nannies sing him lullabies and he had grown up with nursery rhymes like any other child. He wasn't discounting the fact that there was a long history of music meant to be sung, either. Folk songs often included fascinating bits of local history (quite often bloody and violent, not that anyone ever paid attention to the lyrics of the truly old songs).

It had its own value, he was willing to concede. In the hands of a gifted singer, even vocal music was a useful, cherished means of communication between souls.

But … so-called popular music?

It was just another example of Things He Would Never Understand About Ordinary People. What was the point of loud, incoherent, cacophonous noise? It might be rhythmic (wasn't there something about "has a good beat and you can dance to it?"), but that didn't make it "music." (For that matter, the "dancing" that went with it was nothing like the dancing he had learned in school, either.) Why it needed to be blaring from every speaker in public spaces was beyond him.

Music was meant to be soothing, inspiring—emotional, even—not … noise.

So, really, it should not be a surprise to anyone that Sherlock's knowledge of popular so-called music was minimal at best.

Which meant that having a serial killer who used so-called Classic Rock (when there was nothing classic about any of it) as his inspiration put Sherlock at a distinct disadvantage. Had the killer chosen madrigals, these twittering idiots of the Yard would have been suitably impressed, rather than chortling to themselves at yet more proof that Sherlock was out of the popular culture loop.

That would have been bad enough, but he could have dealt with the catcalls or rolled eyes at his lack of knowledge of popular culture. He was certainly not ashamed that his musical education had leaned toward Beethoven and Mozart rather than the Beatles or, in this case, the Rolling Stones.

So why, just now, had everybody fallen over laughing when he innocently asked, "The Who?"

"No, no, not The Who. The _Rolling Stones_. I thought you were a genius, Freak. Can't tell one group from another?" Donovan asked.

"If you're talking about rock-and-roll performers, then no," Sherlock told her stiffly from his full height. "I can't say I've ever bothered. It's not like it's real music, after all."

"Not … not real music? What, anything more recent than Big Band is too modern for your rarefied tastes?"

Sherlock sniffed. At least Big Band music had been played by proper orchestras, not a handful of teenagers bopping about with their guitars. "Just explain the joke," was all he said.

It was John who took pity on him and explained that The Who was the name of another group that he understood the levity … though he still didn't think it was _that_ funny. (The Abbott and Costello references about "Who's on first" went right past him as well. Not that he cared.)

No, he couldn't solve this case quickly enough.

#

When the killer struck again, Sherlock was ready.

Oh, not to actually catch him. He hadn't progressed that far, yet. But he _had_ done his homework. To the detriment of his eardrums, he had listened to an assortment of "greatest hits" from the Sixties and Seventies. He was now at least familiar with the names of the most popular artists and while he couldn't profess to any great expertise, thought he would at least not appear as much of an idiot this time.

Not that he cared what the cretins at Scotland Yard thought of him, not at all. But he did hope to avoid John falling in on their side again.

Not that John's chuckling in his direction had bothered him, though. Not at all. Of course not. That would just be silly.

And anyway, at least he could count on John's laughter to be good-natured. One thing you could say about John Watson, he was never deliberately cruel. When other boys had been tearing wings off flies, John had probably been trying to glue them back on.

He caught John watching as they neared the crime scene. "You all right?"

"What? Fine," Sherlock said with a wave of his hand. He didn't want to seem overly confident, but he was feeling good about his chances of at least recognizing _something_ about the crucial song clue to this murder.

He swept past the tape line and toward the body, snagging a pair of latex gloves in deference to contamination. "What's the song for this one?"

"_Bad Moon Rising_ by CCR," Lestrade said.

That one was … unfamiliar. "By whom?" Sherlock asked, trying not to let his voice sound as stiff as it felt.

"CCR? Creedence Clearwater Revival?" Lestrade's face mirrored his disbelief. "Honestly, Sherlock, did you grow up under a rock? Even if your parents only allowed classical music at home, you did leave the house once in a while, yeah?"

"Of course we did, Lestrade, but I had other things to think about," Sherlock said, bending to the body. "Bad Moon Rising, you say? There hasn't been any correlation with lunar phases in any of the other killings … and the moon is waning just now."

"Oh, that much about the solar system you know," John said, a small grin on his face—but a friendly one, so Sherlock smiled back. "What about the lyrics? Does anyone have that on their player?"

Lestrade nodded and John grinned even wider. "I thought you'd be more a punk rock kind of guy, Greg."

"That, too," the older man said. "It's called being versatile. I grew up with this stuff—sometimes hearing it makes me feel like a kid again."

John nodded. "And other times it makes you feel older than ever. I know the feeling. I can't help but hear _Secret Agent Man_ and I'm back in school again."

Greg laughed, fingers flying on his iPod screen. "My kids used to think that was 'Secret _Asian_ Man.' I never could break them of the habit and they would sing it at the top of their lungs. Thank God people weren't so mad about political correctness back then."

"My mates and I used to argue about lyrics all the time. Were the Beatles singing 'I get high' or 'I can't hide?' Did Springsteen really mean to sing about douches? Christ, we went on for hours."

Sherlock was staring now. They had seriously spent hours of their time on such trivia? Everyone knew you learned best when you were young, and to have frittered away the opportunity by squabbling over music lyrics? How had their parents and teachers allowed such behaviour? If he hadn't been so appalled, he would have felt actually sad for his friends.

Lestrade was grinning now as he pulled up the song and hit play. Sherlock tried not to wince as the men began to play, but forced himself to listen to the lyrics. Or, what he could understand of them. (Did nobody enunciate anymore?)

Something clicked though, and, still listening, he spun on his heel to look down the hall. Of course, because if the killer had hidden in there …

The moment the music had (blessedly) stopped, he was off, striding down the hall to nudge the door open with the tip of his gloved finger. There—clear signs of a man's shoe on the rug. And… he leaned closer… a short, brown hair which very clearly did not belong to their long-haired blonde victim.

Sherlock looked back to see John and Lestrade had followed him. He pointed out the signs. "He didn't have as much time to clear up after himself this time. He's got short, brown hair, wears size 8 shoes, probably just an inch or so short of six feet. Going by the imprint, he's left-handed—he took off on his right foot when he heard the victim. There's some blue lint there, too, which looks to belong to a jacket. You can search the CCTV for a match in the time frame which was … when, John?"

"Two hours ago," John said. "No more than three, going by the state the victim was left in."

Lestrade was just staring. "How on _earth_ did you get all that?"

"It was all right there in the lyrics of that appalling music, Lestrade," Sherlock told him, unable to hide his own grin. "_'There's a bathroom on the right_,' it said … and so there was."

"But… that's not even what it _says_," Lestrade said, speechless. "It says there's a bad moon on the rise. A bad moon. Like in the title, Sherlock."

"Mondegreens, Lestrade," Sherlock said over his shoulder as he walked away, John at his back. "From mishearing the line in the 17th-century ballad _The Bonny Earl O'Moray_. 'They hae slain the Earl O' Moray, And laid him on the green,' and thinking it instead describes a second victim, Lady Mondegreen, thus coining the word. Sometimes they're more meaningful than the original lyric. And, see? Old folk songs can still be just as relevant as popular music. Do call me when you catch the culprit."

And, unable to hold back his smile, he left the crime scene.

Perhaps vocal music had its uses after all.

#

THE END


End file.
